Given that the U.S. government, full of power-hungry Leftists and fascists and all manner of dirty slimeballs, anything promised or set up is subject to change at any time as prior generations just weren't honorable enough to adhere to freedom-granting founding principles.

That's why I doubled my life insurance policies, and made my kids and grandkids beneficiaries of about half. They can invest it and survive better in old age, or spend it and regret it, but at least I am helping them as much as I can.

20 posted on 10/25/2011 8:40:38 PM PDT by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

My wife and I both turned 66 this year and we are getting full S/S checks, plus we still work!! So it is like extra money!! But we both paid into S/S for 45 years so we earned it. So we use the money to go to the Indian casino. Don’t flame me! I am a long time Freeper. Just living life large.

My wife and I both turned 66 this year and we are getting full S/S checks, plus we still work!! So it is like extra money!! But we both paid into S/S for 45 years so we earned it. So we use the money to go to the Indian casino. Don’t flame me! I am a long time Freeper. Just living life large.

Since there is general consensus that SS cannot pay the benefits it has promised to future retirees, it is time to stop extracting FICA taxes from workers.

If we eliminate the worker-side of the FICA, but expand the employer-side to include all employee compensation — meaning not just wages up to $106K/yr, but all wages, all non-cash benefits like health and life insurance, company vehicle allowances, stock options, etc. — and up the rate to 10%, the revenue collected from the employer would collect $850B/yr. That, combined with the $2.5T owed by the general fund to the SS Trust fund, would be enough revenue to pay current benefits to existing retirees until they die. It would be enough to pay future retirees the HHS poverty level of $11k/yr or the amount they’ve earned up to the date they stopped contributing directly, whichever is higher. So nobody has to worry about grandma eating cat food, but a better-than-poverty-level retirement will require people save some of that 7.65% they are no longer paying to FICA and invest for themselves.

I would also require 20 years employment in the US to receive the full default poverty-level benefit, subtracting 5% of benefit for each year they are short of 20 years — that would stop retirement age immigrants and “refugees” from collecting from a system they never contributed to. Collecting retirement earlier than 65 will also reduce your benefit by 5% per year — retire at 60 if you want, but received just 75% of the age 65 amount.

To discourage outsourcing labor, I’d also apply this 10% tax to expenditures to foreign entities including imports, essentially applying our payroll tax to the outsourced labor embedded in those imports. This would garner another ~$200B and allow complete elimination of the Corporate profits tax and all the lobbying and corruption it promotes as well as the overhead to businesses to comply with the corporate tax code. Those profits will still be taxed, but at the individual level as dividend or capital gain income.

24 posted on 10/25/2011 8:46:17 PM PDT by Kellis91789
(There's a reason the mascot of the Democratic Party is a jackass.)